Facial Recognition Faces Congressional Scrutiny

by Blog Burger on July 21, 2012

A senate committee met on Wednesday to discuss the promise and pitfalls of facial recognition technology. Led by its chair, U.S. Sen. Al Franken, the committee questioned privacy advocates as well as representatives of the FBI, the FTC and Facebook, about how the technology is being used and what privacy issues it raises. The discussion focused on potential problems with facial recognition technologies, including the fact that people can’t change their faces to protect their identity, and the ease with which a person’s face can be captured without permission.